Memorial 

i ■ 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States : — 

Your Memorialists, the Council of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
acting 'under its instructions, would respectfully call the attention of your Honorable 
Bodies to certain facts connected with the United States frigate Constitution: — 

That vessel is now lying at Charlestown, Massachusetts, in a clock also used by 
the steamships of the so-called White Star Line ; she is dismantled, out of repair, and 
liable at any time to injury from carelessness or accident, if not to destruction. Your 
Memorialists further represent that in the American mind an historical interest 
attaches to the Constitution such as attaches to no other ship in maritime annals, 
except possibly the Santa Maria, the flag-ship of Columbus, and the Mayflower, both 
of which disappeared centuries ago. The Constitution still remains , and it was the 
Constitution which, in the gloomiest hour of the War of 1S12-14, appeared " like a 
bright gleam in the darkness." On the 16th of August of that year, Detroit, with all its 
garrisons, munitions, and defences, was surrendered to the British forces; on the same 
day Fort Dearborn, at what is now Chicago, was in flames, and with it "the last vestige 
of American authority on the Western lakes disappeared." The discouragement was 
universal and the sense of national humiliation extreme; for it seemed doubtful if even 
the interior line of the Wabash could be successfully held against an enemy flushed with 
success. The prophet of yet other disasters immediately impending was abroad, and, 
according to his wont, further depressed the already disheartened land. It was in this 
hour of deepest gloom, that, on the morning of Sunday, August 30, the Sabbath silence 
of Boston was broken and the town stirred to unwonted excitement " as the news 
passed through the quiet streets that the Constitution was below, in the outer harbor, 
with Dacres," of the Guerriere, " and his crew prisoners on board." Thus it so chanced 



that the journal which, the next morning, informed liostonians of the Detroit humilia- 
tion, in another column of the same issue announced that naval action which " however 
small the affair might appear on the general scale of the world's battles, raised the 
United States in one half hour to the rank of a first-class power in the world.'' The 
jealousy of the navy which had until then characterized the more recent national policy 
vanished forever " in the flash oi Hull's first broadside." The victory, moreover, was 
most dramatic — a naval duel. The adversaries — not only commanders but ship's 
companies to a man — had sought each other out for a test of seamanship, discipline, 
and gunnery — arrogani e and the confidence of prestige on the one side, a passionate 
sense of wrong on the other. They met in mid-Atlantic, — frigate to frigate. It was 
on the afternoon of August 19, the wind blowing fresh, the sea running high. For 
about an hour the two ships manoeuvred for position, but at last, a few minutes before 
six o'clock, " they came together side-by-side, within pistol-shot, the wind almost astern, 
and running before it they pounded each other with all their strength. As rapidly as 
the guns could be worked, the Constitution poured in broadside after broadside, double- 
shotted with round and grape, — and, without exaggeration, the echo of those guns 
startled the world." Of her first broadside in that action, the master of an .American 
brig, then a captive on board the British ship, afterwards wrote : " .About six o'clock 
I heard a tremendous explosion from the opposing frigate. The effect of her shot 
seemed to make the Guerriere reel, and tremble as though she had received the shock 
of an earthquake." " In less than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the 
enemy," reported Captain Hull to the Secretary of the Navy, " she was left without a 
spar standing, and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it difficult to 
keep her above water." 

The historian has truly said of that conflict, — " Isaac Hull was nephew to the 
unhappy General [who, three days before the Constitution overcame the Guerric?'e, had 
capitulated at Detroit], and perhaps the shattered hulk of the Guerriere, which the 
nephew left at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, eight hundred miles East of Boston, 
was worth for the moment the whole province which the uncle had lost, eight hun- 
dred miles to the Westward. . . . No experience of history ever went to the heart of 
New England more directly than this victory, so peculiarly its own ; but the delight 
was not confined to New England, and extreme though it seemed it was still not 
extravagant." 

Therefore it is that the Massachusetts Historical Society, already, in [812, an 
organization more than twenty years in existence, now directs this Memorial to be 
submitted, — she, the oldest among them, speaking through her Council for all other 
similar Societies throughout New England. In so doing it is needless to enter into 



the earlier and later history of what was essentially the " Fighting Frigate " of the first 
American Navy; for, in the memory of the people of the United States, the Consti- 
tution is, throughout her long record, inseparably associated with feats of daring and 
seamanship, — devotion and dash, — than which none in all naval history are more 
skilful, more stirring, or more deserving of commemoration. How can they be so 
effectively commemorated as by the pious and lasting preservation of the ancient ship, 
now slowly rotting at the wharf opposite to which she was launched six years more 
than a century ago? 

And while the name of the Constitution is thus not only synonymous with cour- 
age, seamanship, patriotism, and unbroken triumph, the ship herself is typical of a 
maritime architecture as extinct as the galley or the trireme. She slid from the ways 
at what is still known in her honor as Constitution Wharf in Boston harbor ten 
months before Nelson won the Battle of the Nile, and eight years to a day before his 
famous flag-ship, the Victory, bore his broad pennant in triumph through the Franco- 
Spanish line off Trafalgar; and your Memorialists hold that, in the eyes and minds of 
the people of the United States, no less an interest and sentiment attach to the Consti- 
tution than in Great Britain attach to the Victory. The Constitution in the days of our 
deep tribulation did more for us than ever even the flagship of Nelson did for England ; 
and, thenceforth, she has been to Americans as a sentient being, to whom gratitude 
is due. 

Yet by Great Britain the Victory ever has been and now is tenderly cared for and 
jealously preserved among the most precious of national memorials. As such, it is yearly 
visited by thousands, among whom Americans are not least in number. The same care 
has not been extended over the Constitution ; and yet your Memorialists would not for a 
moment suggest, nor do they believe, that the people, the Parliament, or the govern- 
ment of Great Britain are more grateful, more patriotic, or endowed with a keener 
sense of pride than the people, the Congress, or the Administration of the United 
States. As for the people, the contrary is, in case of the Constitution^ incontrovertibly 
proven by the names of the thousands of pilgrims from all sections of the country 
annually inscribed on her register. So far as the Government is concerned, its failure to 
take measures for the lasting preservation of the old ship has been due, in the opinion 
of your Memorialists, neither to indifference nor to an unworthy spirit of thrift, but to the 
fact that, amid the multifarious matters calling for immediate action, the preserving of 
an old-time frigate, even though freighted with glorious memories, has been somewhat 
unduly, though not perhaps unnaturally, deferred to a more opportune occasion. 

None the less, the Constitution " is the yet living monument, not alone of her 
own victories, but of the men behind the guns who won them. She speaks to us of 



patriotism and courage, of the devotion to an idea and to a sentiment for which men 

laid down their lives." Therefore, your Memorialists would respectfully ask that imme- 
diate provision be made to the end that the course pursued by the British Admiralty in 
the case of the / 'ictory may be pursued by our Navy Department in the case of the 
Constitution. We accordingly pray your Honorable Bodies that the necessary steps 
forthwith be taken for preserving the" Fighting Frigate " of 1812 ; that she be renewed, 
put in commission as a training ship, and at suitable seasons be in future stationed at 
points along our coast where she may be easily accessible to that large and ever-increas- 
ing number of American citizens who, retaining a sense of affection, as well as deep 
gratitude, to her, feel also a patriotic and an abiding interest in the associations which 
the frigate Constitution will never cease to recall. 
And your Memorialists will ever pray, &c. 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 
President, 
SAMUEL A. GREEN, 

Vice-President, 

THOMAS JEFFERSON COOLIDGE, 

Second Vice-President, 
EDWARD J. YOUNG, 

Recording Secretary, 
HFXRV W. HAVNES, 

Corresponding Secretary, 
CHARLES C. SMITH, 

Treasurer, 

HENRY F. JENKS, 

,1 T Ki EPER, 

ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS. 
ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE, 
WILLIAM R. TII.W I k. 
S. LOTHROP THORNDIKE, 
J \MI.S F. HUNNEWELL, 
JAMES Di. NORMANDIE, 

Memberi <<■ tit it ting the Council 
of the So. 

Boston. ]> ember 30, 1903. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 460 352 1 




Hollingcr 

pH 8.5 
Mill Run P03-2193 



